Some readers like understated fantasy. These stories question reality but not as far as genres like science fiction. If you’re one of those people, this list is for you. The stories in these collections go off the beaten path. They draw inspiration from mythology and oral narratives. They include elements of the absurd. They feature unusual characters in odd situations. They play with reality without completely going off the rails into completely unrecognizable worlds. They flirt with the supernatural and the unknown but are still very much down to earth. We hope you enjoy them!
9 Collections of Genre-Bending African Short Stories
June 11, 2021
Walking on Cowrie Shells
Walking on Cowrie Shells
176 pages
Caine Prize finalist Nkweti mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre in her debut. The stories range from a murder investigation driven by statistics to one organized by the changing hairstyles of the main character. Pulling from mystery, horror, realism, myth, and graphic novels, Nkweti showcases the complexity and vibrance of characters whose lives span Cameroonian and American cultures. (Graywolf, June 1)
Intruders
Intruders
125 pages
Orphan sisters chase monsters of urban legend in Bloemfontein. At a busy taxi rank, a woman kills a man with her shoe. A genomicist is accused of playing God when she creates a fatherless child. Intruders is a collection that explores how it feels not to belong. These are stories of unremarkable people thrust into extraordinary situations by events beyond their control. (Picador Africa, 2018)
Igifu by Scholastique Mukasonga
Igifu by Scholastique Mukasonga
160 pages
Scholastique Mukasonga's autobiographical stories rend a glorious Rwanda from the obliterating force of recent history, conjuring the noble cows of her home or the dew-swollen grass they graze on… Her writing eclipses the great gaps of time and memory; in one scene she is a child sitting squat with a jug of sweet, frothy milk and in another she is an exiled teacher, writing down lists of her dead. (Achipelago, 2020)
The Waiting
The Waiting
146 pages
A largely allegorical exploration of the loneliness of an existence based on an alien world-view, Martin Egblewogbe's The Waiting is a collection rooted in metropolitan Ghana, but its primary territory is the human mind. Juxtaposing his training as a physicist against his curiosity about local myth, he creates a universe that's both entertaining and erudite. (Flipped Eye Publishing, 2020)
Sea Loves Me
Sea Loves Me
416 pages
This is a collection of 64 short stories, 36 of which appear in English for the first time. They include early stories that reflect the harshness of life under Portuguese colonialism; to magical tales of rural Africa; to contemporary fables of the fluidity of race and gender, environmental disaster, and the clash between the countryside and the city. (Biblioasis, US February 23/ UK March 11)
Alien Stories
Alien Stories
200 pages
These 18 startling stories, each centered around an encounter with the unexpected, explore what it means to be an alien. With a nod to the dual meaning of alien as both foreigner and extraterrestrial, Osondu turns familiar science-fiction tropes and immigration narratives on their heads. (BOA Editions, May 11)
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
208 pages
Adjei-Brenyah's writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage, and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day. These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. (Mariner Books, 2018).
Tales of Freedom by Ben Okri
Tales of Freedom by Ben Okri
197 pages
Tales of Freedom offers a haunting necklace of images which flash and sparkle as the light shines on them. Quick and stimulating to read, but slowly burning in the memory, they offer a different, more transcendent way of looking at our extreme, gritty world. (Rider, 2009)
Nudibranch by Irenosen Okojie
Nudibranch by Irenosen Okojie
Offbeat characters are caught up in extraordinary situations that test the boundaries of reality . . .A love-hungry goddess of the sea arrives on an island inhabited by eunuchs. A girl from Martinique moonlights as a Grace Jones impersonator. Dimension-hopping monks sworn to silence must face a bloody reckoning. And a homeless man goes right back, to the very beginning, through a gap in time. Nudibranch is a dark and seductive foray into the surreal. (Dialogue Books, 2018)
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